Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Stir with ice and strain into a highball filled with fresh ice. Garnish with berries of the season.

Friday was spent learning more about French spirits. Our education at Tales started with Wednesday's "Bariana: The Golden Age of French Cocktails" and continued on with Friday's "Armagnac, France's First Brandy" and "How French Products Contribute to Cocktails." After these two sessions, we made our way over to the St. Charles Streetcar to go to the Bittermens Launch Party at the Cure. Well, launch of their Tiki and Boston Bittahs and relaunch of their Mole and Grapefruit Bitters since shifting production from Germany to stateside in Somerville, MA.

Although the Cure did not have a special menu for the event, the bartenders were up for making drinks with any of the four bitters. For my first drink, I asked what bartender Turk Dietrich what he could do with sherry and the mole bitters. While I was expecting the sherry to be used more as an accent, Turk surprised me by making sherry the major spirit and going old school with a Cobbler. I was also impressed at the attention to detail given in "ornament[ing] with berries in season" a la Jerry Thomas' recipe. The Pedro Ximénez sherry provided a very refreshing sweet fruit flavor and nuttiness to the Cobbler, and Andrea thought that it tasted "like liquid figs." I was rather impressed with how the fruit and nutty notes worked with the chocolate and spice in the bitters, as was Avery Glasser who quite enjoyed the pairing from the sip he had.

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